WRAL Newscasts
6AM News on WRAL - Thursday, July 4, 2024
At WakeMed MyCare 365, we deliver convenience others only talk about every day of the year. Primary care and urgent care under one roof. Multiple locations, virtual visits, walk in or schedule an appointment online. From annual physicals and routine care, to sinus infection strep or the flu, we couldn't be more convenient. Learn more about our kind of care at www.arcanicconvenience@wakemed.org [TAKE VO] Now breaking news from WRAL, coverage you can count on. [TAKE VO] At 6, a man is dead after troopers say he drove a stolen car off the road. What we've learned about this crash and the people involved. [TAKE VO] It's going to be a warm one across the entire state for us. Temperatures in the 90s for many of us. We're going to go over what it will feel like coming up. [TAKE VO] We'll be sparkling tonight at the Durham Bulls game. What you need to know about that fireworks show and other big 4th of July celebrations happening all around our area. Bring you inside our WRAL studio here on Independence Day. We're bringing the spirit today. [TAKE VO] Yeah, we actually coordinated today with this red, white and blue. Not a bad deal. We're pulling it off. We're glad you're with us. I'm Jeff Hogan. [TAKE VO] And I'm Renee Chiu. Also this morning, we've noticed just how beautiful it is on all our live camera networks. These gorgeous sunrises happening. But first, let's take a look at the Rip Currant risk with meteorologist Anthony Badleone for all those folks headed to the beach today. [TAKE VO] Yeah, I'm sure the beaches are going to be very packed for us as we go through the next couple of days. We're seeing temperatures currently in the 70s across our area. At the beaches, I want to make you aware we are looking at moderate rip current threats for just about all of our beaches. So that's something to be very mindful of as you head out about it. It may be a little bit deceptive that we could see some of those kind of higher rip current threats, if you will. I want to talk about the tropics, too, because this is our new advisory on Hurricane Beryl, a 120-mile-per-hour winds. A change from yesterday when it was a Category 4, it's now down to a strong Category 3 hurricane. The current track of this one does take it through the Caribbean, weakening close to Cancun as a Category 1, and then up toward the Mexico coastline there as a Category 1 hurricane. Coming up here in the next time we meet, we're going to talk about our July 4th weekend. Go over specifics for a chance of some showers and storms, guys, here in a few. Breaking news, we're following this morning. A man is dead after a rollover crash near Smithfield. It happened on Cleveland Road around 1-15 this morning. Nick Pirlin went to that scene in the W-R-L breaking news tracker. Tells us some interesting facts about this. There was also a woman in the car at the time of the crash. State Trippers in the Wilson Mills Fire Department spent this morning investigating a crash that happened in this field behind me in Smithfield. Now, I do want to show you this video from the W-R-L breaking news tracker, and you can see this car flipped over into a field and badly damaged. We're told from State Trippers the car you're looking at was actually stolen, and at around 1-15 this morning, the driver of that car sped off of Cleveland Road and crashed it into this field. We know one man and one woman were inside this car at the time of the crash. The man died, the woman is expected to recover, we're still trying to learn more about that woman's condition and what charges she may face in Smithfield. Nick Pirlin, W-R-L News. And we're working to learn more about the crash that left this vehicle overturned. The W-R-L breaking news tracker got this video last night around 11. The vehicle crashed on I-40 near US-1, and you can see the windshield in front of the vehicle destroyed. We'll update you when we learn what led to the crash and the condition of the driver involved. You will need to take some precautions as you celebrate the Fourth of July today and that extreme heat you'll experience out there. Thousands of people will be enjoying the evening at the D-Bap right here where fireworks will be shot off from the field after tonight's game. W-R-L's Kelsey Coffey joins us from the D-Bap now, and all the fun that's going to be happening there tonight. Crack of the bat, crack of all those firecrackers going off. Jeff tonight's full game is just going to be the perfect place to spend the fourth with your family. Of course, the ballpark is empty right now, but in just a few hours, hundreds of fans will be ready to enjoy some baseball and an epic fireworks show. And you're looking at video now of the show last year. Buying a ticket to tonight's game will guarantee your seat for the fireworks show. Gates will open for general admission at the end of the seventh inning to watch the show, but space inside the ballpark will be limited. Tickets are still available online. The game will start tonight at 635, and the fireworks show is scheduled for 915. Kelsey Coffey, W-R-L News, live in Durham. Hurricane Beryl is making its way toward the Cayman Islands this morning. Over night, it weakened slightly to a Category 3 storm. It has killed seven people and caused widespread damage in the Caribbean. Jamaica is still under a state of emergency this morning after Beryl passed by the island yesterday. This footage shows fierce winds and rain slamming the nation. No deaths have been reported in Jamaica. Meantime, in the U.S., our Hurricane advisory notice has been issued in Texas. Beryl's path on certain state authorities have warned people in coastal areas to be prepared over the holiday weekend in case tropical weather reaches the Gulf Coast. Cornwallis Road in Durham is back open this morning after two cars crashed into a tree that had fallen onto the road near Bainbridge Drive. Video from the W-R-L breaking news tracker shows emergency responders on the scene. Police tell us the tree fell onto the road and knocked down a power line before 10 last night. Two cars then ran into the fallen tree. No one was hurt. Driver is hurt after crashing her SUV through a building in Moore County. See the result of that. Look at this. The video from the W-R-L breaking news tracker shows the damage to that Toyota. Troopers tell us the driver had some sort of medical emergency before the crash yesterday afternoon. It happened on U.S. 1 north of Adkin Road in Vass. Troopers say no one was in the building when it was hit. The driver is expected to be okay. Warrens reveal new disturbing details in the deaths of London and Blake Devon. They claim Avante Devon forced others to help her hide the deaths of her two adopted children. According to records, Avante Devon forced a sibling to buy tools to dismember Blake after he died in 2017 from starvation and abuse. Records show she made a family friend impersonate him during a state check-in. After London died, Warrens say Devon forced a former household member to remove and destroy carpet, flooring, and other evidence. One defense attorney says Devon could face the death penalty unless her team proves her innocence or gets her a less severe punishment. What would they have to determine? You look for those mitigating factors. You know, did they have serious mental illness? You know, what was their life growing up? Warrens say Avante Devon told one of her adopted children to take the blame because she would get the death penalty. But that person wouldn't due to their age. She's due back in court July 17th. It could take months before a verdict is reached. Warning about a topic we've been discussing. Drownings are on the rise. An 18-year-old died yesterday after being pulled from the ocean in Nag's head. Two other swimmers made it to shore. Tuesday night a car bro man died and when he drowned, all swimming in Jordan Lake. Chatham County officials identified him as Eduardo Martinez. He was visiting the lake with family. They saw him struggling in the water but couldn't help him. This is the third drowning at the lake since May. You'll notice more law enforcement patrolling the roads in waters today and throughout the weekend. Operation Dry Water begins today. Operation Firecracker Boozit and Luzit has already begun. The annual campaigns promote sober boating and driving during the holiday. Operation Dry Water runs until Saturday. It reminds people to stay vigilant on the water while working to reduce crashes of fatalities during the busy holiday week. A man who was killed in a shootout with Fayetteville police has been identified now. This happened Tuesday at an apartment complex while officers were trying to serve a first-degree murder warrant. Police say Shakur Williams barricaded himself inside an apartment for hours before coming out and exchanging gunfire with officers. He died at the hospital. Williams was wanted for the murder of Willie Russell back in May that happened on Seneca Drive. Three Fayetteville officers there and an SBI agent are on administrative leave. Today the team from beyond the call of duty will stop at the Wake County Sheriff's Office with their traveling fallen law enforcement memorial. It's called End of Watch Ride to Remember. The group is on a 73-day ride to honor fallen officers throughout the country. And while here they will honor the life of Deputy Ned Byrd. He died in 2022. President Biden says he is staying in the presidential race even as more Democrats ask him to bow out. The President and Vice President held a conference call with campaign staff yesterday. Officials say he was direct saying to aides, "Let me say this is clearly as I possibly can as simply and straightforward as I can. I am running." A new Wall Street Journal poll shows that the President is falling further behind former President Trump. Biden now trails by six points. 80% of people surveyed said they consider the President too old to run again. Good morning. I'm Chris Lovenga in the WRAL Life Center. Some shocking images coming out right now from Lebanon. This is between an exchange of airstrikes between Hezbollah and Israeli forces. Hezbollah is the Lebanese militant group. And efforts are happening internationally to stop a war from starting on that front. While Israel is in its war campaign against Hamas and Gaza. But you'll see right here the fires that are on these lands. It's actually farmland that is on fire on both sides of the Lebanon and Israel border there. So you just see how intense the smoke is as well as they're trying to clean up efforts there. But in terms of a ceasefire in both between Israel and Hamas and between Israel forces and Hezbollah. Doesn't look like that's happening yet. Chris, thanks. Today it's going to feel like triple digits and a cooling shelter will be open in Durham today. It's opening this afternoon at two and will operate until the high heat backs off. At the Durham Rescue Mission crews are working to provide space for anyone in need of cool shelter and food. If you're driving to a Fourth of July cookout or pool party today. Here are the best and worst times to be on the road. Triple A reports the best time to travel today is before noon. You may want to avoid being on the road between 2 and 7 p.m. Those will be the busiest hours. Then tomorrow you'll have the best luck driving before 10 a.m. 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. will be the most congested time that day heading into the weekend. If you need to grab last minute supplies today some grocery stores will be open. Target and Walmart locations will be open during regular hours. Other local retailers may have different hours so it's a good idea to call ahead. Post offices and most banks will be closed today. Local government offices and libraries will be closed. 10 after 6 on the Fourth of July holiday. Coming up some firefighters in California are suffering injuries after working to contain a wildfire there. We'll bring a new video from the Thompson fire as it is slowly being contained. And another former Boeing employee is speaking out what one man says he witnessed when he worked as an inspector on the assembly lines at the Dreamliner factory. As we get started here on our July 4th holiday things are looking very quiet across our region right now. But there's some moisture up to the north. We're going to talk about if that could affect our fireworks forecast heading through tonight. Coming up. 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We are the designer in North Raleigh located at 3030 Wake Forest Road in the Holly Park Plaza. We would love to see you or visit our website at thedesigner.com. Welcome back to time now. It's just about 6-14 here on this July 4th morning. We are still continuing to track a lot of the heat across the area. We've had excessive heat warnings outlined there in that darker color contour. All of the orange you see right there are heat advisories. And so no matter what those colors are showing. We're seeing fields like values basically between about 105 and 110 in those areas. What we are looking at here at home though. High temperatures climbing to right about 97 this afternoon. It'll feel closer to let's say 102 about 106. So similar to a pattern that we saw last week. We got a little bit of a break from that and then now we're going back in it. 104 this afternoon and then 111 is what it will feel like tomorrow. So any plans out there just make sure to stay hydrated and keep the heat in mind. Part of California is under state of emergency. As firefighters work to contain the Thompson fire. The fire in the northern part of the state is now just 7% contained. Cal Fire says it remains at about 4,000 acres. At least four firefighters were hurt while trying to contain it. No word on their condition. Fire officials have downgraded evacuation orders for some parts of that area. A former Boeing inspector is alleging scrap parts were used on the assembly lines at the 787 Dreamliner factory in Everett, Washington. Murrow Myers works as a quality control manager at Boeing for 30 years. He estimates that beginning in the early 2000s, about 50,000 parts that were deemed unsuitable to fly were taken out of internal scrap yard and then used to build planes. He says those parts range from small items like screws to more complex assemblies like wing flaps. Meyer says this was done to meet deadlines. He also believes this is still going on based on conversations with current employees. In a statement, Boeing did not dispute Meyer's allegations. Cricket fans in India are celebrating the return of their World Championship winning team. The players had been stranded in Barbados because of Hurricane Barrel. They won the World Cup last week and they were supposed to come home Sunday, but the airport in Barbados had to shut down its operations because of the storm. Carbro town leaders are reminding people to be aware of their surroundings after a rise in bear sightings. The police department did not say where or when the bears were spotted. The state's division of wildlife reminds people not to feed bears and to lock up and secure any potential food sources. They also don't want to let your pets outside leave your pets outside overnight or unsupervised. More tips are available online. This 4th of July we're hearing some of the stories of America's first veterans. Volunteers have been working with the National Archives to transcribe military pension files from the Revolutionary War. Unlike today, soldiers had to show why they were in need of financial assistance and education. A special project started last year with the hope of finishing in 2026 for the 250th anniversary of America's independence. Volunteers from across the country and the world are going page by page, line by line. Every word that's transcribed becomes searchable in the National Archives catalog. And when it's searchable, it means that it's accessible to the entire world. Stories from the files will be shared with the National Park Service who will allow park rangers to share something that is transcribed during a tour of a battlefield or other historic landmarks. Pretty good penmanship back in the day there. Wake Forest July 4 celebrations will continue this morning with the town's annual Kids Parade. This is video from a previous year parade. And kids are encouraged to come out on their bikes this morning and line up on the north main street for the parade. It starts at 1030 this morning. The fun will then continue with a festival in Holding Park at Heritage High School starting at 11. Samford, Clayton and Rollsville will all mark Independence Day with celebrations today. And Samford, Freedom Fest, kicks off at 3 p.m. in Kiwanis Family Park. The celebration will end with a fireworks show after dark. Clayton will celebrate the holiday with fireworks as well, starting at 530 in the downtown area. And the town of Rollsville expects thousands to come out to its annual Fourth of July celebration at Redford Place Park. The event is from 5 until 930 tonight, and fireworks are scheduled for 915. And if you're staying in tonight, we have you covered. You can catch fireworks show right here on WRAL with the Macy's Fourth of July fireworks spectacular tonight. You can watch it live on WRAL from 8 to 10 p.m. If you're not staying in and you're going driving, be careful out there today. Holiday travel. It'll be busy if you're headed towards the beach, and then back to the WRS Severe Weather Center right now, that beautiful of Carolina beach. I found our own firework in the sky here to start us off this morning. Beautiful for us, that sunrise coming up. I'm sure lots of people are going to be out there at the beaches, the lakes, wherever you are going today. Of course, yes, as Jeff was saying, just make sure to be careful. We are looking at moderate rip current threats along our coast today. It looks okay right now, but just as always, make sure to pay very close attention to those flags out there. If you're headed to the beaches, if you're going to fireworks tonight, we would love to see how you are celebrating this Fourth of July. So go to WRAL.com and search weather watchers. We'll try and get some of those pictures on there either this morning. Tomorrow, do kind of a recap of that. It's going to be, I'm sure, a lot of people out and about from the next couple of days. Moderate rip current threats along our coast. So you see it drop off a little bit down toward Wilmington, but still just plan on moderate rip current threats if you're headed out. So that way you can be safe and just kind of take some extra precaution. Otherwise, you should be okay. Temperatures across the state. We're starting off warm already. We're at 73 there, Kitty Hockell on the Outer Banks. We're in the 70s for the majority of us. 61, a nice, comfortable reading there in Boone. We are going to heat up pretty decently though through the next couple of hours. And unlike yesterday, feels like values today are back in the 100s. So we should be feeling like 104 this afternoon, 111 tomorrow, and then that will continue into Saturday. Sunday does look a little bit better. And I'll show you the kind of rain chances here in the next little while, but that's why those temperatures start to go down just a little bit as we get some more rain chances. Fireworks tonight on the whole looking fine. We do have a chance of just a few spotty storms coming through, and so I'm going to walk you through on feature casts with that entails. Here's the wide view. You start, or we start you off this morning. We are fine. No issues here if you're traveling across the area. We should be nice and dry. We go closer to lunchtime, still looking fine, but you notice up to our north. There's a front that's just close to us. It may try and get a little bit farther to the south there with the cutoff really being about the triangle for some spotty showers and some thunderstorms. This is not severe weather. It's not really a big organized system, but it's enough where they could pass on through. You may need to give it 10, 15 minutes or so, and then it will move on out. I don't think it's big planned canceling rain tonight. We look over the next couple of days, the next seven days or so. We're looking at potentially two to two and a half inches of rainfall around the triangle and points to the west and then an inch and a half there for Goldsboro and Wilson. That would come in here this weekend as we get into next week. Scattered shower and storm chances. A hundred degrees there on our Friday, upper 80s and low 90s guys into next week. Anthony, thanks. It's a holiday classic that we hope you came hungry for. Nathan's annual hot dog eating contest returns today. Why a new champion is guaranteed to be crowned. And we're getting our first look at the Little Mermaid's new baby, the newly released pictures of Halle Bailey. And here's a look at the winning lottery numbers. ♪♪ Here's Brandon with Parkway Sleep Centers. Tired of waiting for a sleep treatment? 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Visit GCU.edu. ♪♪ This What's Trending Report, sponsored by Rug and Home. The little mermaid star, Halle Bailey, is showing off her son for the first time. Yeah, we have a look at that and what's trending here this morning. Bailey and her boyfriend, DDG's son, Halo, was born in January. They have kept pictures of him private until this point. Yesterday, the two posted photos of their family on Instagram during a trip to Italy. DDG also posted a video on YouTube with his son, including a trip to Target, where he shows Halo, his mom, in Barbie form. Aw, he is adorable. He's about six months old now. He was born January 6th, and on those photos that you see there, the caption was, "Halo's first trip to Italy. Six months old, first trip to Italy." How about that? First trip to Target to see mom in Barbie form. Yeah, yeah. A lot of firsts that first year. And Maryville Aver took a break from bringing us our business headlines to tie the knot. Take a look at these photos that she posted to Instagram. Maryville says she and her husband Christopher got married in an intimate ceremony at City Hall in New York. And they plan to have some receptions later on. New York girl in Gotham with the bling bling. Look at that ring. All right. Congratulations. Can't wait to see her live from the Nasdaq Market site. We're used to see her every day, usually. What's July 4th without a hot dog eating contest, right? An official weigh-in ceremony was held yesterday for people looking to compete in the Nathan's Annual Hot Dog Eating Contest. The competition kicks off this morning at 10.30, starting with the Women's Competition. The event is expected to go on without its reigning champion, Joey Chestnut. Yeah, Chestnut set the record of 76 hot dogs in 10 minutes back in 2021. Who could forget? But he will miss this contest to compete against soldiers at Fort Bliss, Texas. If he can't be in Coney Island, we certainly support him being with the troops honoring our armed forces. Chestnut banned. How about it? Yeah, from competing at Nathan's this year because he signed an endorsement deal with Impossible Foods, a brand that sells meat substitutes. Nathan's famous hot dog Fourth of July Eating Contest dates back to 1972. Today's winners will bring home $10,000. Well, if you're grilling out today, maybe firing up some hot dogs or something like that later this afternoon. It is going to be hot for us. Temperatures in the upper 90s. If you can do it closer to this evening, we are watching, though, a chance for some showers and storms. We're going to go over when they could arrive coming up. Plus, Long Forceman was busy on roads low overnight. We are following two stories involving rollover crashes. The details troopers told us about one of them being stolen. At Wake Med MyCare 365, we deliver convenience others only talk about. 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